Why I need to unblock downloads?

[Andrew]

Can any bright expert tell me the reason why I have to unblock any downloaded
material, including e-mail attachments before they’ll work properly?
When I send zip files, they too are blocked – with a password I never placed
on them, however, unblocking via properties removes this mystery password. –
Thanks – Andy

 

[Malke]

Can any bright expert tell me the reason why I have to unblock any
downloaded material, including e-mail attachments before they?ll work
properly? When I send zip files, they too are blocked ? with a password I
never placed on them, however, unblocking via properties removes this
mystery password. ? Thanks ? Andy

No one can tell you because you gave no information about your computer, the
Service Pack level of your operating system, or what antivirus/security
software you have installed.

Try again with lots more details so we can help you.

Malke

 

[Andrew]

OK - Sorry 'bout that - I'm running XP Home via SP3 with nearly 4TB of mainly
EHD.
Main Aintivirus is AGV Free 8.0 aided by Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware,
Ad-Aware Pro and the not so good now Spybot S & D.
When I open Properties to click and apply Unblock, there is a message
besides the Unblock box which reads: 'This file came from another computer
and might be blocked to help protect this computer.'
Does this mean I might be able to turn this protection off, if so how?
Some files seem to work OK with the block in place by the way, not however,
exe. files.
Thanks again - Andy

 

[Malke]

OK - Sorry 'bout that - I'm running XP Home via SP3 with nearly 4TB of
mainly EHD.
Main Aintivirus is AGV Free 8.0 aided by Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware,
Ad-Aware Pro and the not so good now Spybot S & D.
When I open Properties to click and apply Unblock, there is a message
besides the Unblock box which reads: 'This file came from another computer
and might be blocked to help protect this computer.'
Does this mean I might be able to turn this protection off, if so how?
Some files seem to work OK with the block in place by the way, not
however, exe. files.

The problem is undoubtedly caused by settings in one or more of the security
programs you have installed. You are apparently one of those people who
thinks that having lots of antivirus/firewall/antispyware programs is
better. It's not. After at least three machines came into the shop where
the owners had Internet issues because they were so jammed up with security
nothing could get out, I wrote an article to give to my clients which you
can have if you like (it's in .pdf format).

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/Too_Much_Security.pdf

To address your issue, I would:

Uninstall Ad-aware (this is not very good any more anyway). If there were
immunization-type settings, undo them *before* you uninstall.

Uninstall Spybot S&D *after* undoing any immunization/Tea Timer settings;

If you wish to keep AVG 8 do so, although I prefer Avast if you want a free
AV. There have just been too many issues and false positives with AVG for
comfort. Keep the free version of MBAM which doesn't run resident. Update
it and do a quick scan once a week. Practicing "Safe Hex" is more important
than having more security software installed.

If you don't want to do any of the above, then you will need to go through
each of your security programs' options and set them back to default.

Malke

 

[Donald Anadell]

OK - Sorry 'bout that - I'm running XP Home via SP3 with nearly 4TB of
mainly
EHD.
Main Aintivirus is AGV Free 8.0 aided by Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware,
Ad-Aware Pro and the not so good now Spybot S & D.
When I open Properties to click and apply Unblock, there is a message
besides the Unblock box which reads: 'This file came from another computer
and might be blocked to help protect this computer.'
Does this mean I might be able to turn this protection off, if so how?
Some files seem to work OK with the block in place by the way, not
however,
exe. files.
Thanks again - Andy

In addition to Malke's excellent advise, you might also want to bone up a
little on a few things like:

NTFS file system
ADS(Alternate Data Streams)
Zone.Identifier

When Internet Explorer downloads something from the Internet, it adds an
ADS(Alternate Data-Stream) to the file named :
Zone.Identifier.

In this ADS stream it will place information about the zone the file came
from (zoneID=3 means it came from the Internet ), when you delete this
stream the file is "Unblocked".

If you have a great many downloads you wish to unblock without doing each
one seperately using the Properties dialog box.
Then a relatively easy method is to select all of the files and||or
directories you want to unblock, right click, add it to a zip file. Delete
the original downloaded files, and extract the zip file to the same
directory structure. All files are now unblocked without having to manually
click "unblock" on each file.

Some interesting reads on the subject to get you started:
http://www.microsoft.com/msj/1198/ntfs/ntfs.aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=105763
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=883260
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=889815

Good luck,

Donald Anadell

 

[Andrew]

Hi again - Thank you for writing your Security pdf, however, I am really
surprised you recommend SpywareBlaster in it as it was the culprit in slowing
down my PC. Also, I discovered they deliberately infected my PC to create the
impression it was a good program to have for protection!
Funny you should say Ad-Aware is not so good now - I formed that opinion
also and will dump it soon. As for SpyBot S & D, it will no longer immunise
many sites and needs reprogramming to simplify it as it was years ago.
Apparently, their website has a little program that one runs to rid of
registry entries. How one enters this and runs it I've no idea - any clues?

Regards - Andy

 

[Ken Blake]

Hi again - Thank you for writing your Security pdf, however, I am really
surprised you recommend SpywareBlaster in it as it was the culprit in
slowing
down my PC.

How do you know that? I think that what you say is *highly* unlikely.

Also, I discovered they deliberately infected my PC to create the
impression it was a good program to have for protection!

No, they don't do that, although there are several other programs that do.
The combination of that statement and the one above it makes me almost sure
that you thinking of a program other than Spyware Blaster.

 

[Andrew]

Hi again, again - forgot to mention, when I downloaded your Too Much Security
pdf,
there was no block on it - explain that if you can! - Andy

 

[Malke]

Hi again - Thank you for writing your Security pdf, however, I am really
surprised you recommend SpywareBlaster in it as it was the culprit in
slowing down my PC. Also, I discovered they deliberately infected my PC to
create the impression it was a good program to have for protection!
Funny you should say Ad-Aware is not so good now - I formed that opinion
also and will dump it soon. As for SpyBot S & D, it will no longer
immunise many sites and needs reprogramming to simplify it as it was years
ago. Apparently, their website has a little program that one runs to rid
of registry entries. How one enters this and runs it I've no idea - any
clues?

I think you are confusing SpywareBlaster with something else. SpywareBlaster
is not a spyware scanner and doesn't run resident. It doesn't infect
anyone's computer. It has never slowed any of the hundreds of computers
we've installed it on over the years. With all the security programs you've
got installed, it would surprise me greatly if your system had *not* slowed
down.

Questions about Spybot Search & Destroy should be asked in their forums.
I've always found that disabling any immunization and stopping Tea Timer
before uninstallation worked just fine. No other programs were ever needed
to remove it.

Malke

 

[ju.c]

Read about it here:

Description of the Attachment Manager
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883260/en-us


ju.c